Hoe slimmer de moeder, hoe slimmer de dochter Het onderzoek naar de relatie tussen voorbereidende rekenvaardigheid en opleidingsniveau van ouders, met daarin het verschil tussen jongens en meisjes

Abstract

This research focuses on the relationship between early numeracy of children and parental educational level. We scrutinize if this relationship is different between genders and what these gender differences are. Aim: this current research aims to clarify the relationship between the level of early numeracy and the level of parental educational level. A positive relationship would provide the opportunity to apply intervention to boys and/or girls at an early stage in life. It is important to intervene at an early stage because children with good math skills will be more successful within society later on. If certain factors influence the level of early numeracy, it would be a chance to intervene on these specific factors to help the development of the youngsters. Method: the UGT-3 was taken at a sample of 1311 participants over 33 primary schools in The Netherlands. The sample consisted of 667 (50.6%) boys and 644 (48.8%) girls. The average age in months in our sample is 62.13 for boys and 68.29 for girls. The UGT-3 measures the level of early numeracy for children between 48 and 84 months old. Procedure: prior to this research, permission to participate in the study was obtained from parents through informed consent. Parents were given information about the research and gave their permission in an answer strip. Results: a multiple regression analysis was performed to investigate the relationship between parental educational level and early numeracy. This was chosen because this not only makes clear whether there is a relationship, but also whether this relation is different for educational level of the father and the educational level of the mother. The results of the multiple regression analysis show that there is significant positive relationship between level of early numeracy and parental educational level. All three analyses show a positive relationship between the maternal educational level and two out of three analyses show a positive relationship between paternal educational level and the level of early numeracy. A moderation analysis was performed to investigate whether there is a difference for boys and girls for the relationship between parental educational level and early numeracy. A multiple regression analysis was used. The results from this analysis show that this relationship is different for boys and girls. Conclusion: this research found that a higher level of parental education positively relates to early numeracy of children. However, we found that when mothers have a higher level of education, there is only a positive relation to the early numeracy of girls, and not boys.